Thursday, August 2, 2012

Windows 8 Is Ready:
New submitter drinkydoh writes "In an announcement today, Microsoft has finally said that Windows 8 is now complete. Microsoft has begun delivering RTM versions to manufacturers and the general availability of the tablets and computers using Windows 8 will be on October 26th. 'Microsoft's final milestone concludes almost two years of development for its new Metro-inspired Windows 8 software and marks the beginning of the release phase. Microsoft says MSDN and TechNet customers will be able to download it from August 15th. Windows Store will go live on August 15th. Developers will be able to access the final tools and submission process for Metro style apps at the Windows Dev Center later this month.'"

Does Cybercrime Really Cost $1 Trillion?: Proponents of a federal computer security bill keep saying that hacking costs companies $1 trillion annually. But is there any actual truth to that number or is it just a scary statistic created by a security company's marketing firm?

Artificial butter flavoring ingredient linked to key Alzheimer's disease process: A new study raises concern about chronic exposure of workers in industry to a food flavoring ingredient used to produce the distinctive buttery flavor and aroma of microwave popcorn, margarines, snack foods, candy, baked goods, pet foods and other products. It found evidence that the ingredient, diacetyl, intensifies the damaging effects of an abnormal brain protein linked to Alzheimer's disease.

Existing Solar Tech Could Power Entire US, Says NREL:
derekmead writes "A new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory finds that solar holds more potential to generate more power (PDF) than any other clean energy source. The NREL broke things down into four groups: urban and rural utility-scale photovoltaics (giant solar plants, basically) as well as rooftop solar and concentrated mirror arrays. Between those technologies, which are all already on the market, the NREL reckons there's a proven potential for solar to hit a capacity of 200,000 gigawatts in the United States alone. For some perspective, 1 gigawatt is what a single nuclear power plant might generate, and it's more than most coal plants. A gigawatt of capacity is enough to power approximately 700,000 homes."

Whistleblower, Suspected of Leaking Warrantless Spying Program, Sues NSA: A former congressionals staffer and NSA whistleblower the authorities suspected of exposing the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program is suing the government, saying her constititonal rights are being violated because her computer seized five years ago has never been returned, and the feds have refused to clear her name. "I found about it. I knew about it. They knew I knew about it. I told everybody they needed to put civil libeties protections on it or eleminate it," she said from her home outside Salem, Oregon.

jfruh writes "On the day of the Facebook IPO, the NASDAQ's trading systems suffered multiple failures and couldn't confirm buy orders for several hours. Big banks buying shares for their funds and customers placed multiple orders as a result, and bought more Facebook stock than they intended to as a result. NASDAQ has agreed to set up a fund to compensate them for their losses, but apparently this isn't enough for Swiss bank UBS, which is threatening legal action."

netbuzz writes "A hacker who defaced and disabled the website of a New Zealand film company known for helping poor children could find himself in legal hot water in his home country of Spain after his attack spurred a Facebook/Twitter posse that included members of Anonymous, who the hacker may have been trying to impress. 'Apparently, one of the (Anonymous) rules is you don't hack charity sites, you don't hack sites of people trying to help kids,' says the owner of the damaged site. 'This guy was trying to impress them, to try and get into their group and boasting about what he'd done — but they turned on him, they chased him.'"

When we forget to remember: Failures in prospective memory range from annoying to lethal: Why would highly skilled professionals forget to perform a simple task they have executed without difficulty thousands of times before? These kinds of oversights occur in professions as diverse as aviation and computer programming, but research reveals that these lapses may not reflect carelessness or lack of skill but failures of prospective memory.

New submitter prayag writes "With the advent of crowdsourcing platforms it has become easier for people to 'automate' simple, yet repetitive tasks that computers aren't good at by hiring thousands of people at once. This can help some business cheaply accomplish certain tasks, but it can also be misused by spammers. A company called MobileWorks is even outsourcing this concept, reaching out to workers in developing nations whose income needs aren't as high. 'Kulkarni, who founded the company in 2010 with fellow graduate students from the University of California, Berkeley, says the value of tasks is set so that workers can reasonably earn $2 to $4 an hour; payments are on a sliding scale, with lower rates for poorer countries. "Even though they are acting as agents of a computer program, we are creating an opportunity for them," he says. MobileWorks charges its clients rates starting at $5 per hour for workers' time.'"

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Dying of cold: Hypothermia in trauma victims: Hypothermia in trauma victims is a serious complication and is associated with an increased risk of dying. A new study has found that the key risk factor was severity of injury. However, environmental conditions and medical care, such as the temperature of the ambulance or temperature of any fluids administered intravenously, also increased risk.

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that a massive power breakdown has hit India for a second day running, leaving more than half the country without power as the northern and eastern grids have both collapsed. The breakdown has hit a large swathe of the country including Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan states in the north, and West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand in the east. Power cuts are a common occurrence in Indian cities because of a fundamental shortage of power and an aging grid. The chaos caused by such cuts has led to protests and unrest on the streets but the collapse of an entire grid is rare — the last time the northern grid failed was in 2001. India's demand for electricity has soared in recent years as its economy has grown but its power infrastructure has been unable to meet the growing needs. In the weeks leading up to the failure, extreme heat had caused power use to reach record levels in New Delhi and on July 30 a line feeding into the Agra-Bareilly transmission section, the 400-kV Bina-Gwalior line, tripped, triggering the collapse. The second grid collapse occurred on 31 July as the Northern, Eastern and North-Eastern power grids of India tripped/failed causing power blackout in 19 states across India. The crisis was allegedly triggered after four states — Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and UP — drew much more than their assigned share of power."

An anonymous reader writes "A teenager from Dorset, England was arrested for sending a Twitter message to Olympic athlete Tom Daley saying: 'You let your dad down i hope you know that.' Police arrested the 17-year-old boy as part of an investigation into 'malicious tweets' after Daley and his teammate missed out on a medal. Daley's father died from cancer last year. While it is rarely used and the police have not indicated whether they are pressing charges, the Communications Act 2003 s.127 covers the sending of improper messages. Section 127(1)(a) relates to a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. Sean Duffy was convicted and sentenced earlier this year for similar comments. I look forward to tens of thousands of arrests across England over the next few days as all public remarks which may cause offense, regardless of their target, are investigated by the law."
According to the Guardian, another (since deleted) tweet threatened Daley with drowning, but the law doesn't require threats of violence for an arrest to be made.